An Intimate Edinburgh Wedding with Vintage Red Bus Tour

Emily & Ewan’s love of all things Scottish meant that Edinburgh was a no-brainer for their wedding. The Scotsman hotel had the perfect blend of green & gold tones that really helped bring their wee wedding together. Their guests got to enjoy a vintage red bus tour – making sure everyone was thoroughly in love with the Scottish capital by the day’s end.

How did you two meet?

We met online in 2014 and our first date was in Bath. We met at a small coffee shop on a rainy Saturday morning and had a fun time. Our relationship grew from there with more dates and time spent together. We were actually due to get married on the 24th May 2020, which would have been 6 years to the day since we met, but alas Covid meant we had to delay for a year!

What inspired your wedding plans?

Ewan’s family is Scottish, and Emily’s mum lived in Edinburgh for several years when she was a child. Ewan has loved Edinburgh all his life and was able to share the charm, beauty, and vibrance of the city with Emily. She enjoyed her visits to watch the rugby on many occasions, along with good food and drinks! Ewan asked Emily after the engagement if she would consider getting married in Scotland, she loved the idea and we never considered anywhere else. Once we had chosen Scotland, we were always going to be drawn to Edinburgh as the destination. When we walked into the Scotsman Hotel, we knew almost straight away it was the one! And our wedding plans grew from there, with a mainly Scottish theme (tartan, Tunnocks Tea Cakes, haggis, and so much more!)

Tell us about your venue…

The Scotsman Hotel is situated in the heart of Edinburgh, we’ve been to lots of countryside weddings so we felt it was a nice change to have a city centre location. The hotel itself is extremely grand and ornate, the building has stood for several hundred years and has recently been restored with lots of its charm preserved. The brand colours of the hotel are green and gold, which tied in perfectly with our theme. Historically the building was the office of the Scotsman newspaper, so there are historic printing artifacts dotted around the hotel. With it being such a prestigious newspaper, the building of course has to match. One key feature is a marble staircase, where many photos were taken. When people asked about the venue before the event, we would tell them about the marble staircase! The wedding venue itself is arranged as a collection of rooms. We got married in a covered courtyard area with festoon lights and pops of greenery, it was perfect! The courtyard area looks onto the main space where we had our wedding breakfast, so as the speeches were taking place the backdrop was the courtyard all lit up, it was magical. The team at the Scotsman was incredible throughout the whole planning process and the event itself, nothing was a problem for them and together we overcame a few obstacles due to Covid!

We love your outfits! Tell us more…

Emily – I wanted the full experience, so I had a few day trips to bridal shops with my mum, but I knew that I would end up finding the perfect dress at my friend’s shop in Warminster. The service we received was on another level, Lisa and her mum, Clare, offer the best customer service and really put me at ease. Even though I had been to multiple shops, I still didn’t know what I wanted, so Lisa helped me try on various styles and she knew that she was leaving the best for last; a full-length A-Line dress with a floral lace design in ivory with a Champagne under layer and a small trail. The lace design featured thistles, so with a Scottish wedding, it was meant to be! A week later, I went back to try it on again with my maid of honour and she said it was certainly “The One”.

Ewan – The kilt was actually my late grandfather’s kilt. It is an Ancient Campbell of Cawdor tartan. The wedding was the first time I had ever worn a kilt and it was special that it was from my grandfather. The tartan is a mid-green, with blue, black, and orange colours making up the pattern. With the colour being predominantly green, it matched perfectly with the theme of the wedding. The remainder of the outfit was a charcoal grey kilt jacket & waistcoat. Green bow tie (of course!), white shirt, grey kilt socks, and black brogues. Finished off with a grey sporran.

Your photos are making us smile!

Ali was recommended to us by a friend. From the moment we met Ali, we knew she would be great for us. We shared a few facetime chats initially due to the distance between Bath and Fife. She is really supportive and gave us all the reassurance we needed during our pandemic wedding! Before the wedding, we met Ali in Edinburgh and did an engagement shoot with her, we explored areas of Edinburgh that she thought would be good for pictures, such as Carlton Hill and the Grassmarket. During the engagement shoot, she put us at ease and the results were stunning, we were really happy! Ali’s style is a documentary style of photography. This means she captures more candid photos, rather than posed ones. For us, she really captured the essence of the day and how people were responding to us being married and the event we had created. The photos really convey the emotions people were displaying at the time and we love looking back on them and reliving the special moments. She also has an incredible eye for the composition of photos and they are all truly beautiful to look at. After the event, she spent time with us compiling our wedding album, so that it was just how we wanted it.

Tell us more about the flowers…

Sophie from Save the Date was brilliant. She was so easy to deal with and she brought everything together with minimal fuss and incredible skill. The flowers were seasonal and of course a little bit of Scottish too. We went for a pastel colour palette with pops of colour here and there, and of course a few thistles! The flower arrangements were on the minimal side also, with a bouquet for the bride, pinholes for the boys, and ring flowers for the bridesmaids (instead of hoops, we used hexagons to fit in with the theme). The venue was decorated sensitively, with mainly table displays and some small arrangements in strategic locations. We had a small malfunction with the cake, in that part of it collapsed on the drive up from Bath to Edinburgh. On the day, Sophie came to our rescue and nimbly covered the partially ruined cake with some flowers and made it look perfect again. In hindsight, we probably should have told her to change the company name to ‘Save the Day Collective’!!

What was your first dance song?

We weren’t able to have music so we didn’t have a first dance, however, it was going to be MAGIC by Craig David. He is our favourite artist and the song Magic just sums us up perfectly!

Which of your suppliers completely rocked your wedding day? We’d love to hear your top three…

Maureen the Celebrant – she was the perfect blend of loveliness, humour, and calmness for us through the whole process. We spent lots of time with her discussing our plans and how we could personalise the ceremony for us. Ali Jay – again she helped guide us through the planning process meticulously. We also spent a lot of time chatting with Ali about our plans and she really gave us all we wanted. The Scotsman – as with the other 2 above, the Hotel supported us all the way and was really kind to us. The level of service and the quality of food and drink available was 5 star, we couldn’t fault anything.

Were there any challenges along the way?

COVID!!! We had to move the wedding 3 times. When things started easing up and it looked like we could get married in front of our family and close friends, we decided to go ahead with the wedding, but with reduced numbers. We reduced the day from 100 guests to 25. Whilst it would have been lovely to have everybody in Scotland for the celebration with no restrictions, we still had an awesome time and it meant we could host a party a year later for everyone in Frome where we live now! The Hotel has a cinema – the Scotsman Picture house. We had planned to use this for well-wishing messages from people who couldn’t attend. It is a beautiful old-style cinema and we would have had exclusive use for a short time to do this. Unfortunately, the space had been damaged by some building working and wasn’t safe to use. On the upside, the hotel has a beautiful Cafe called the Grand Cafe which wasn’t open when we had our wedding, therefore we were able to get some incredible photos in this space as it was completely deserted!

Any advice?

Get someone in your party who knows the format of the day, has a loud voice, and is willing to shout out to people what is happening next!

Honeymoon or minimoon?

Both! We went over to the west coast of Scotland for a few days after the wedding, to Castle Sween. We visited Oban, Lochgilphead, and Inveraray along the way too. We have just got back from two weeks of relaxing in Rhodes, which we counted as our honeymoon. We also treated ourselves to a trip back up to Edinburgh for our one-year anniversary and stayed in the same hotel room at The Scotsman Hotel overlooking the city, which was so memorable.

What’s the one moment you will always remember?